{"id":39915,"date":"2023-05-30T00:00:46","date_gmt":"2023-05-30T04:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/?p=39915"},"modified":"2023-06-01T01:06:54","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T05:06:54","slug":"soon-forget-generations-nightbeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2023\/05\/soon-forget-generations-nightbeat\/","title":{"rendered":"Soon Forget: Generations Nightbeat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is the latest in a series (of indefinite length and regularity) of blog posts memorializing cancelled toys. Our figure today is Hasbro's <i>Transformers: Generations<\/i> Nightbeat.<\/p>\n<p>Now, there was a <i>Generations<\/i> Nightbeat, under the \"Thrilling 30\" heading in 2014. It was retooling of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/yo\/tfg_goldf.php\">Goldbug<\/a>, but that wasn't the original plan.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe sandbox=\"allow-popups allow-scripts allow-modals allow-forms allow-same-origin\" style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=lp&language=en_US&marketplace=amazon&region=US&placement=B00E4FNWAM&asins=B00E4FNWAM&linkId=eabeba917d08f2b5a732a0fb89c5c251&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p><!--more-->When solicitations for Nightbeat first came out (him, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/yo\/tfg_winbl.php\">Windblade<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/yo\/tfg_jhi.php\">Jhiaxus<\/a>), the figure was not using the Bumblebee mold, but rather <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/yo\/tfg_jazz.php\"><i>Reveal the Shield<\/i> Jazz<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/tf_nightbeat1.jpg\" title=\"the Nightbeat that might have been\" width=\"335\" height=\"355\" class=\"aligncenter\"><\/p>\n<p>This was a logical choice, since the original 1988 Nightbeat also turned into a Porsche. Jazz's speakers would have been replaced with spotlights, suiting a police\/detective character like Nightbeat.<\/p>\n<p>Even if that image had never surfaced, we'd have gotten at least one clue to its existence: the toy-exclusive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.comics.org\/issue\/2065102\/cover\/4\/\" target=\"gcd\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>Robots in Disguise<\/i> #26<\/a>, included as a pack-in with the figure, clearly depicted Nightbeat with the Jazz body. So clearly the change of bodies was made pretty late in development.<\/p>\n<p>Bonus fun fact! In IDW's <i>More Than Meets the Eye<\/i> #43, Nightbeat joins a few other Autobots on an excursion to Earth (sort of), using his holomatter avatar (the light-show puppet Autobots use when they need to look like people) to get around. Many of the avatars seen in the comic are inspired by pop culture characters - <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/yo\/tfc_ssvp.php\">Vector Prime<\/a>, for instance, has been shown to resemble Doctor Who - and Nightbeat, having a bit of a \"grizzled detective\" personality, had a holomatter avatar based on Detective Chief Inspector John Luther: you know, <i>Cats<\/i> star <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/yo\/av3m_heim.php\">Idris Elba<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/tf_nightbeat2.jpg\" title=\"separated at birth\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" class=\"aligncenter\"><\/p>\n<p>And while that makes perfect sense based just on the character's personality, it's either a second layer of meta-joke or a beautiful moment of perfect alignment that Nightbeat's original mold was shared with one other character, in Japan: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/yo\/tfg_lmin.php\">Minerva<\/a>. Or, as they romanized her name on every bit of packaging, \"Minelba.\" Min-Elba, Idris Elba... there's definitely something there.<\/p>\n<div class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Posts\"><H5>&lt;i&gt;And now, some more OAFEry:&lt;\/i&gt;<\/H5><ul class=\"entry-meta\"><li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Transformers have weird names\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2025\/05\/transformers-have-weird-names\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Transformers have weird names<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"That's the least of your problems!\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2026\/05\/thats-the-least-of-your-problems\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">That's the least of your problems!<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Kia gets into the Transformers game\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2016\/03\/kia-gets-into-the-transformers-game\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Kia gets into the Transformers game<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Transformers Scourge addendum\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2022\/08\/transformers-scourge-addendum\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Transformers Scourge addendum<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"SPOSTARBUST-Related-Post\"><a title=\"Transformers BotBots Avocando &#038; Peary Peculiar reviews\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2020\/09\/transformers-botbots-avocando-peary-peculiar-reviews\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Transformers BotBots Avocando &#038; Peary Peculiar reviews<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the latest in a series (of indefinite length and regularity) of blog posts memorializing cancelled toys. Our figure today is Hasbro's Transformers: Generations Nightbeat. Now, there was a Generations Nightbeat, under the \"Thrilling 30\" heading in 2014. It &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2023\/05\/soon-forget-generations-nightbeat\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,331,8],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-39915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addendums","category-cancelled-toys","category-hasbro","tag-transformers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39915"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39964,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39915\/revisions\/39964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}